The Socialization Of America Is Economically ImpossibleBrandon Smith, ContributorThursday, July 5, 2012Activist Post

I understand the dream of the common socialist. I was, after all, once a Democrat. I understand the disparity created in our society by corporatism (not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same). I understand the drive and the desire to help other human beings, especially those in dire need, and the tendency to see government as the ultimate solution to all our problems.

That said, let’s be honest; government is in the end just a tool used by one group or another to implement a particular methodology or set of principles. Unfortunately, what most socialists today don’t seem to understand is that no matter what strategies they devise, they will NEVER have control. And, those they wish to help will be led to suffer, because the establishment does not care about them, or you. The establishment does not think of what it can give, it thinks about what it can take. Socialism, in the minds of the elites, is a con-game which allows them to quarry the favor of the serfs, and nothing more.

Socialism is not something that we can lay over a society like a template, it will arise naturally as a consequence of material conditions and the forces of material dialecticism, forces which have governed the evolution of social economy since the dawn of human sentience. The materialisation of Hegel's metaphysical dialecticism. It bodes us well as non-bourgeoisie to understand these forces which, at the climax of capital's trajectory, may well see the emergence of a descent into barbarism or the rise of that which is antithetical to capitalism, depending of course on material conditions such as climate and the store of commonwealth remaining at capital's end..

Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Beware: “Allocated” Gold May Not Really Be ThereIn 2007, Morgan Stanley paid out $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by its clients alleging that Morgan Stanley took money from them for buying precious metals on their behalf, took money from them for “storage” of these precious metals accounts, but only pretended to purchase the bullion.

Avery Goodman points out that MS has just launched a similar scam, offering “allocated” metals, but gaming the definition so that the holdings are not really allocated.

On May 21st, Matterhorn Asset Management’s Egon von Greyerz alleged that Swiss banks are trading physical gold bullion which is being held in special “allocated” accounts for its customers:

We are stressing to investors to take their gold out of the banking system, not only because there are runs on banks that will continue, but the risk of being in the banking system is major. So you should take the additional step of not just owning physical gold, but also owning it outside of the banking system.

We (just) had an example of a client moving a substantial amount (of gold) from a Swiss bank to our vaults, and we found out the bank didn’t have the gold. This was supposed to be allocated gold, but the bank didn’t have it. We didn’t understand why there was a delay (in our vaults receiving the gold), but eventually we found out why there was a delay (the bank didn’t have the gold). It’s absolutely amazing, but not surprising.

This confirms what I’ve always thought. Not only should you not have gold in banks or even unallocated gold, but even allocated gold. It seems that some banks don’t even possess that. So the risk of having gold in the banking system is major.”

LIBOR: the 'mega-scandal of all mega-scandals' is upon usMadison Ruppert, ContributorFriday, July 6, 2012Activist Post

The London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, scandal is growing by the minute and is shaping up to be one of the largest, if not the single largest, financial scandals of all time. This has the potential to make the massive conflicts of interest at the Federal Reserve and the $16 trillion in “emergency loans” given out by the Federal Reserve look reasonable.

For the uninitiated, as it were, the scandal centers on British financial institution Barclays, the former CEO of which testified yesterday before the British Parliament.

Bob Diamond’s testimony on July 4, 2012 was almost painful. Diamond fell back on the incredibly tired excuses used by the criminals in the financial sector which were accurately summed up as “a long version of ‘It was awful, but don’t blame me.’”

LIBOR is, to put it in a crudely simple fashion, is the fluctuating rate at which banks can borrow from each other. However, this isn’t just a rate which affects UK banks.

Indeed, the LIBOR is used as an indicator for many of the world’s various fluctuating rates spanning a wide range of so-called “financial products.”

This is because the LIBOR is used as a rough indication of the level of confidence between one bank and another, with high rates indicating a low level of confidence and uncertain financial stability.CONTINUE: [link to www.activistpost.com]

In view of the 2008-09 economic meltdown, some on the left felt that the global and neoliberal agenda dominant since the 1979-81 economic crisis would be jettisoned in order to stabilize global capitalism. Yet the age of austerity proclaimed as a necessity by the Toronto G20 summit is clearly a continuation of ‘there is no alternative’ to brutal and restructuring capitalism. What's now emerged in the United States is the role of the right-wing state governments (more than the federal government) in imposing a really brutal economic austerity as well as a reactionary social agenda. The Midwest states are the model (WI, OH, IN, MI), although certainly attacks in CA and NY are a part of this drive. The budget-slashing agenda is a bipartisan one, although to be sure it is most viciously imposed by Republicans (and in this country unlike Europe, the elites don't openly call it ‘austerity’).

This is not to minimize the role of the federal government. After all, it is the federal budget that is spending roughly 50 per cent of all federal dollars on the military and ‘war on terror.’ Unlike most states, the federal government can run a deficit in order to create jobs or save homes from foreclosure. Instead of saving people, it has been estimated that federal institutions bailed out Wall Street and corporations to the tune of $20- to $30-trillion.

Before any problem can be fixed it must first be acknowledged. The jobs crisis stays in the shadows, out of mind, and consequently unaddressed. This is allowed to happen because those in power - Republicans and Democrats - both have political reasons to remain silent.

When the jobs crisis is discussed, the word "crisis" is seldom used, and the conversation is conducted with hushed tones and minimizing vocabulary. Therefore, when the monthly national jobs report was announced for June, there was quiet grumbling instead of passionate oratory; passivity instead of mobilization and action.

In the last three months the country added an average of 75,000 jobs a month. But job creation per month must be over 100,000 to keep up with young workers entering the workforce; therefore the real number of unemployed has steadily increased, on top of the mountain of already long-term unemployed.

The term "austerity" masks a deeper reality...the conflict over worker tax and pension payments to the state, payments which are increasingly being used to promote bubbles (the housing bubble in Spain for example)as well as to cover risk in the speculative market.

Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

The Collapsing US Economy and the End of the WorldPaul Craig RobertsSunday, July 8, 2012Activist Post

In a recent column, “Can The World Survive Washington’s Hubris,” I promised to examine whether the US economy will collapse before Washington in its pursuit of world hegemony brings us into military confrontation with Russia and China. This is likely to be an ongoing subject on this site, so this column will not be the final word.

Washington has been at war since October, 2001, when President George W. Bush concocted an excuse to order the US invasion of Afghanistan. This war took a back seat when Bush concocted another excuse to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war that went on without significant success for 8 years and has left Iraq in chaos with dozens more killed and wounded every day, a new strong man in place of the illegally executed former strongman, and the likelihood of the ongoing violence becoming civil war.

Upon his election, President Obama foolishly sent more troops to Afghanistan and renewed the intensity of that war, now in its eleventh year, to no successful effect.

Years ago, America's economy was a job creation machine. Today it's rusted, wheezing, and sputtering on the way to collapsing.

In June, America added 80,000 jobs. U-3 unemployment remained at 8.2%. Based on 1980 calculations, it tops 22%.

Most jobs created are part-time, low-pay temp ones. The nation's manufacturing base largely exists offshore. So do many high-pay service jobs.

Expectations were missed for the fourth straight month. Typically at this stage of the economic cycle, around a quarter million monthly jobs are created. Moreover, 36 months after an alleged recovery, U-3 unemployment is 3.6% below the pre-recession high.

The household survey adjusted on a comparable basis to the headline payroll one showed 153,000 June job losses. It was the third decline in the past four months. In total, 666,000 jobs are gone.

Average hours worked fell to 0.4% year-over year down from 4.3% in Q 1. It suggests downward GDP forecast revisions anywhere from 1.5% to contraction.

The University of Michigan "favorable (employment) news" index plunged to 27 in June from 34 in April and May. In March it was 38.

It reached a 2012 low. Since 1980, a decline of seven points month-over-month occurred only six times. In contrast, unfavorable employment new rose five points to 28. It hit a yearly high.

The Conference Board's "jobs hard to get" index rose to 41.5 in June. It reflected a five-month high. In May it increased to 40.9 from 38.1 in April. The ISM jobs index fell slightly from 56.9 to 56.6 month-over-month.

Initial jobless claims averaged 387,000 in June. They rose 3% over May. In the past decade, months in which they increased this much saw declining payrolls over 70% of the time.

Average hours worked fell to 0.4% year-over year down from 4.3% in Q 1. It suggests downward GDP forecast revisions anywhere from 1.5% to contraction.

The Big Banks are Amateurs When It Comes to Manipulating Interest Ratesby Washington's BlogJuly 10, 2012

Who Are The Biggest Manipulators of All?People are justifiably furious over the big banks’ manipulation of hundreds of trillions of dollars of assets. This violates the banks’ most central function: loaning money based upon the going rate.

Indeed, the Libor manipulation is so serious that even mainstream economists are starting to call for heads to roll.

The Bank of England and Federal Reserve’s encouragement of Libor manipulation is not an isolated incident. Rather than being an aberration, it is their central effort.

Indeed, the big banks are rank amateurs when it comes to manipulating interest rates. Central banks have been manipulating rates in very substantial ways for a hundred years or more.

David Zervos – Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist for Jefferies, with $3 billion under management – points out: Central bankers try to influence rates directly and indirectly EVERY day. That is their job. From the NYFED website this is description of the monetary policy objective – “the directive for implementation of U.S. monetary policy from the FOMC to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York states that the trading desk should “create conditions in reserve markets” that will encourage fed funds to trade at a particular level. Fed open market operations change the supply of reserve balances in the system, and by affecting the supply of balances, the Fed can create upward or downward pressure on the fed funds rate.”

5 Best Countries for Offshore BankingWednesday, July 11, 2012Activist Post

When we hear the term “offshore banking,” it often conjures up images of the overly-wealthy elite or sly, nefarious criminals hiding away millions of dollars from prying government eyes. But the way offshore banking is portrayed in the movies is not the reality.

Opening an account offshore is not illegal, as many people wrongly believe. In fact, many offshore financial institutions are considered safer than many domestic banks. Most foreign banks offer absolute privacy guarantees, as well as security to protect your assets.

Banks in the United States are limited in the amount of the interest they can pay to customers. Many offshore institutions are able to offer higher interest rates to their clients. In many US and European banks, the governments have too much control, to the detriment of the countries’ citizens. Because of this, the government can step in to freeze your bank accounts and assets indefinitely.

Some countries are a better choice for offshore banking than others. Here are the top five countries to consider if you want to put a portion of your money into a foreign account and what you need to open one.

Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us. We have seen "stimulus packages", quantitative easing, bond buying, interest rate cuts, emergency economic summits, bailout packages for banks, bailout packages for entire nations, "Operation Twist", unprecedented government intervention in business and massive amounts of new government debt and yet nothing seems to revive the global economy.

In fact, it looks like we are rapidly heading into the second dip of a "double dip recession".

Unfortunately, many believe that this next dip will be more like a full-blown depression. All over the world, top economic experts are warning that we are facing an unprecedented crisis of debt and insolvency that will result in a global financial catastrophe. The eurozone is drowning in debt, the U.S. government is drowning in debt and major banks all over the globe are drowning in debt. Global authorities have been trying to patch the system together and keep it going, but the incredible damage that all of this debt has done is now becoming apparent to everyone. The global debt bubble that has fueled prosperity in the western world for the last several decades is getting ready to burst, and when that happens the chaos that will result will be absolutely horrifying.

The world’s 105 biggest companies are worth more than US$11 trillion. They touch the lives of people across the globe.

But just how much do we know about their impact on daily lives? Too often, citizens experience little benefit from global economic activity while suffering the consequences of unethical corporate activity.

The cracks in the ice are getting bigger. At this point it is really hard to have much confidence in the global financial system at all.

They told us that MF Global was an isolated incident. Well, the horrific financial scandal over at PFGBest is essentially MF Global all over again. They told us that we would not see a huge wave of municipal bankruptcies in the United States. Well, three California cities have declared bankruptcy in less than a month. They told us that we could have faith in the integrity of the global financial system. Well, now we are finding out that global interest rates have been fixed by insiders for years.

They told us that Greece was an isolated problem and that none of the larger European nations would experience anything remotely similar. Well, what is happening in Spain right now looks like an instant replay of exactly what happened in Greece.

According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost. The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefitted from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal.

Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios. But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Instead, the fixed Libor rate enabled them to improve their balance sheets, as well as help to perpetuate the regime of low interest rates. The last thing the banks want is a rise in interest rates that would drive down the values of their holdings and reveal large losses masked by rigged interest rates.

Indicative of greater deceit and a larger scandal than simply borrowing from one another at lower rates, banks gained far more from the rise in the prices, or higher evaluations of floating rate financial instruments (such as CDOs), that resulted from lower Libor rates.

As if the current methods of evaporating privacy and pushing a world toward the Cashless Society were not moving fast enough, Facebook is now developing and beta testing an app that would allow users to “pay their utility bills, balance their checkbooks, and transfer money at the same time they upload vacation photos to the site for friends to see.”

Essentially, the new application which is currently in beta phase with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, allows for interactions regarding banking and financial services over alleged secure and private connections.

A similar, albeit attenuated program, is already in existence in India which was created by ICICI Bank in conjunction with Facebook that allows users, “through a secure SSL connection,” to “view account details and mini statements as well as apply for debit cards and request chequebooks.”

And now a little something for everyone who consistently has a nagging feeling that at any second the world is one short flap of a butterfly's wings away from complete systemic disintegration.

According to David Korowicz of FEASTA, and his most recent paper: 'Trade-Off: Financial System Supply - Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse.' that just may be the case.

This study considers the relationship between a global systemic banking, monetary and solvency crisis and its implications for the real-time flow of goods and services in the globalised economy. It outlines how contagion in the financial system could set off semi-autonomous contagion in supplychains globally, even where buyers and sellers are linked by solvency, sound money and bank intermediation. The cross-contagion between the financial system and trade/production networks is mutually reinforcing. CONTINUE: [link to www.zerohedge.com]

JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank by assets, announced Friday that the trading loss from derivatives bets made by its Chief Investment Office (CIO) had reached $5.8 billion, nearly three times the amount the company had revealed in May. It added that the bad bets could result in an additional $1.7 billion in losses over the rest of the year.

In its second quarter filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the bank admitted that it had failed to report $459 million in losses from the trades in its first quarter report, released April 13. CEO Jamie Dimon and other top executives attempted to lay the blame on “certain individuals” who “may have been seeking to avoid showing the full amount of the losses being incurred in the portfolio during the first quarter” — an allusion to several traders in the London office of the bank’s CIO who have since been forced out of the firm.

Bloomberg News reported that this explanation seemed implausible to former JPMorgan executives it interviewed, who said the company had mechanisms in place to make sure traders could not simply hide their losses. In fact, JPMorgan’s report to the SEC on Friday indicates that the bank recorded a $718 million loss from the London trades on its internal accounts, but did not report the loss in its first quarter earnings statement.

In other words, JPMorgan deliberately falsified its first quarter report to the SEC in order to conceal its massive gambling losses. This is a crime — a violation of banking laws for which Dimon, as the CEO, is responsible. That Dimon was involved in a cover-up is underscored by the proof contained in Friday’s report to the SEC that he was already aware his bank had lost hundreds of millions if not billions when he told a conference call in April that reports of major losses by the bank’s CIO were “a tempest in a teapot.”

The trading loss debacle is only one of many scandals engulfing JPMorgan Chase.

The creators of Debtocracy, a documentary viewed by millions of people around the world, present their new production, entitled CATASTROIKA, on the website www.catastroika.com.

The documentary uncovers the forthcoming results of the current sell-off of the Greek public assets, demanded in order to face the country's enormous sovereign debt. Turning to the examples of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome, CATASTROIKA predicts what will happen, if the model imposed in these areas is imported in a country under international financial tutelage.SOURCE: [link to tv.globalresearch.ca]

The Russian government has finally caught on that its political opposition is being financed by the US taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA/State Department fronts in an attempt to subvert the Russian government and install an American puppet state in the geographically largest country on earth, the one country with a nuclear arsenal sufficient to deter Washington’s aggression.

Just as earlier this year Egypt expelled hundreds of people associated with foreign-funded “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) for “instilling dissent and meddling in domestic policies,” the Russian Duma (parliament) has just passed a law that Putin is expected to sign that requires political organizations that receive foreign funding to register as foreign agents. The law is based on the US law requiring the registration of foreign agents.

Much of the Russian political opposition consists of foreign-paid agents, and once the law passes leading elements of the Russian political opposition will have to sign in with the Russian Ministry of Justice as foreign agents of Washington. The Itar-Tass News Agency reported on July 3 that there are about 1,000 organizations in Russia that are funded from abroad and engaged in political activity. Try to imagine the outcry if the Russians were funding 1,000 organizations in the US engaged in an effort to turn America into a Russian puppet state. (In the US the Russians would find a lot of competition from Israel.)CONTINUE: [link to www.paulcraigroberts.org]

US Drought Could Have Significant Impact in Developing Countries The recent heat wave and drought in the United States have sharply reduced expected yields for some food crops this year, resulting in surging prices for food commodities such as corn and soybeans. Analysts say consumers are likely to see higher prices at the supermarket. But as Mil Arcega reports, smaller yields and higher prices could have lasting implications in other parts of the world, especially in developing countries.

To seize the belongings of all nations and individuals - This is the real reason for poverty in the worldIn reading the following article of Louis Even, first published in 1941, one will quickly realize that the plan of the Financiers to seize the people’s wealth and the farmers’ land has been going on for a long time. But today, one can clearly see that this plan has been fully realized. The people owe all of their country’s wealth to the Bankers through national debts, and a majority of the farmers of developed countries have disappeared; those remaining must work night and day to pay interests to the Bankers. Let us all read again this important document that enlightens us all on the real reasons for poverty in the world.

Here is the full text of an article published in the United States Bankers’ Magazine in 1892. It was recently re-published in the New Era and in the Social Crediter, where we took it:

To seize the belongings of all nations and individuals - This is the real reason for poverty in the worldIn reading the following article of Louis Even, first published in 1941, one will quickly realize that the plan of the Financiers to seize the people’s wealth and the farmers’ land has been going on for a long time. But today, one can clearly see that this plan has been fully realized. The people owe all of their country’s wealth to the Bankers through national debts, and a majority of the farmers of developed countries have disappeared; those remaining must work night and day to pay interests to the Bankers. Let us all read again this important document that enlightens us all on the real reasons for poverty in the world.

Here is the full text of an article published in the United States Bankers’ Magazine in 1892. It was recently re-published in the New Era and in the Social Crediter, where we took it:

I don't think that there is a premeditated attempt to pauperise the working classes, so much as capital's natural tendency is to consolidate value in the hands of fewer and fewer. This is played out in the markets which are at the heart of capital's momentum and are a zero sum game. Someone has to lose for someone else to gain. As the momentum of capital gains pace with globalisation, so the competition in pursuit of consolidation becomes more frenetic and elaborate, the survival quotient more complex.

The system has objective compulsions that in effect corral the players into particular modes of behaviour. In a nutshell, "they do not know what they do" but act as they must to prevail.

Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!